Riot - On Your Knees

From their seventh album, The Privilege Of Power (1990). This was the only Riot album I ever really knew. They had a horn section at this point, but otherwise sounded like Queensryche or something. I was 14 at the time this album came out, and was still following the metal scene pretty closely, but had also discovered the American post-punk scene of the 1980s, and so was also listening to bands like Mudhoney and Sonic Youth. The metal that was able to catch my interest during this transitional period was the smarter, weirder stuff. Therefore, I could get into Riot. It’s hard to believe now that a band like them ever existed—wailing power metal with a somewhat intellectual vibe and a horn section? It sounds like something that a modern music critic would invent as a prank or something. And yet they were real, and even though their music still sounds a bit cheesy to me now, it also still sounds kinda rad too. So yeah, for any of you who wondered what my last post was about, here you go.